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2/28/2010

How to fix California's Economy

This a brief video from John Taylor. He is a economics professor at Stanford University. This video is a excerpt from a longer interview (the link is given). He lists 3 things that California needs to do to help it's recovery from this recession and limit the effects of future recessions.

2. Put in some tax reforms that prevent the ups and downs in revenues to be so great.

3. Education, K12 is slipping. He mentions a setting up a program to encourage more teachers and their accountability.

According to the BEA California's economy in 2008 was 1,846 million (current dollars). It also reports the U.S.'s at 14,165 million. This makes California's economy 13.03% in 2008. I feel that if Califonia was able to limit the effects of a recession then that in turn would limit the overall affect on national GDP.

4 comments:

I'm curious what kind of program could be set up to increase teacher accountability while simultaneously encouraging teachers. Maybe I'm making too big of an assumption but in my personal opinion, the less regulation, the better the quality of work. My mother, a teacher for nearly thirty years, felt that the "No Child Left Behind" act introduced in 2001 actually reduced the effectiveness of teachers. It reminds of the comments I hear sometimes from people who say they'd never want to be doctors because the malpractice insurance is so crazy.

In regards to teacher improvement. In my opinion teachers need greater incentives instead of more guidlines and rules. Incentives are what drives productivity. This is pretty self evident however, I think that the problem inside the problem is, how does one evaluate a teachers performance in comparison to their peers? Until this can be answered accountability is a gray area.

He's conservative, but his advice is sound. Beware though, he comes across as a crabby old man.

Politically and economically, California is a mess. Politically, they can't make tough choices. Economically, the state relies heavily on knowledge industries that are potentially fickle. The genuinely vibrant and sustainable part of the economy - the Mexicanization of the state - isn't popular.

I'm afraid California is like New York was 50 years ago: just past its peak, and unwilling to admit it.

In doing research for another class I found an article that says legalizing marijuana could raise $1.4 billion in tax revenue as well as create jobs. I don't think this would fix California's economy, but it definitely wouldn't hurt.